NBA Draft Lottery 2014: Charles Barkley says NBA should give teams one ping pong ball
By Josh Hill
The NBA Draft Lottery is still the most confusing and controversial thing in professional sports. Steroid use is a problem but it’s a known problem where the root cause is widely known. The Draft Lottery is as a case for Mulder and Scully as no one understands why it exists, but there truth is out there.
For Charles Barkley, the truth is in the solution and he apparently has one. While we all try to do away wight he draft lottery to get the NBA to install a more traditional draft order, Barkley says we can keep the lottery but make one subtle change that will morph it into a level playing field.
"“My suggestion — the NBA is too stupid to listen to me — I said just give teams one ball,” Barkley said Tuesday on ESPN’s Mike & Mike Show. “Don’t give teams extra ping polls by the more they lose. I think only twice in the 20 years has the team with the worst record and the most balls got the No. 1 pick. Only twice in like 25 years. So don’t give teams extra balls because they’re losing games. Just give every team in the lottery one ball. That would be the easiest way to handle it.”"
You know it’s a good idea because we’re all sitting here wondering why we didn’t push this idea harder in the past. One ball per team seems to level the playing field as the Milwaukee Bucks could tank and still end up with a bad pick.
Of course, this isn’t a perfect method but there is no perfect method for the lottery. We will likely see modifications made to the Draft Lottery by Adam Silver and Barkley’s suggestions ought to be considered.